


Negative Space

by imperfectkreis



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Oral Sex, Stranger Sex, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:03:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3740068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collection of smut one-shots that may or may not be canonical with my larger series Both Matter/Constellations. Basically a dumping ground for random sex scenes that popped into my head. You shouldn't have to have read the other series to enjoy the porn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Other Mistakes in a Haze of Youth That Should Have Long Passed

**Author's Note:**

> Trevelyan and Cullen meet twice in passing before Kirkwall burned. He tells her his name, she lies. But it doesn't matter, because she won't remember him anyway.

Sabina sees him once, along the docks. Dressed in plate armor too heavy for a time of peace. But then again, the Circles would have them believe there is no peace, as long as mages are born and killed. Though she is not a mage, she is also not stupid. Templars kill mages. ‘Protects’ is nothing but a lie. She thinks hers are prettier.

He walks stiffly, as if he has forgotten how a human body could ever be graceful. Light catches in his golden hair, handsome for sure. Hands behind his back, he marches along like someone who has worn armor for much longer than is actually possible, youthful as he looks, no more than her own age.

The templar is not someone she should dwell upon, as she jumps from the solid shore of the docks to the uneven mass of stones that serve as a breakwall to protect the shores of Kirkwall. Something slips beneath her shoe, but Sabina is unafraid, sure enough she will catch her balance. Straightening back to her full height, she prepares to run along the breakwall as far as it will carry her.

Not three steps away and she hears a voice, undoubtedly for her. “Stop!” It calls.

She does, as if on a copper piece, rocks sliding into the sea as her weight balances again. Turning, she catches the templar rushing towards her. The edge of the dock stops his approach. There is no way for him to follow her.

“What?” she questions, grabbing at the end of her ponytail to occupy her hands.

Up close, well, as close as he is now, he is more beautiful than she first took him for. With light eyes, perfectly straight nose.

When he moves he is loud, teetering on the edge of a sea crossed so many times it could barely be called an obstacle. Such is the glory of man.

“What are you doing? Get off of there!”

Sabina smiles, considers running down the line as she had intended, practicing her balance, learning a new trick. If the stones weren’t sure to cut her hands, she’d attempt cartwheeling across. No, running must be sufficient.

“Training,” she states as plainly as could be.

The templar narrows his eyes. “I have not seen you in Kirkwall before.”

Sabina shrugs her shoulders. “Don’t figure they let boys and girls like you stray too far from their Circles. You’d break your lead.”

His face turns away from hers. Really, she knows well enough pulling troublemakers out of the Waking Sea is no task for the mighty Templar Order. They are more suited to assaulting their charges in their beds.

This time she doesn’t hesitate, just runs.

–

Sabina sees the pretty templar a second time, in a place she wouldn’t expect.

The Blooming Rose sells many things that she likes. Alcohol and attractive faces to laugh at simple jokes. To slide their bodies against hers. Her head feels clear, even as the ale has made her hands clumsy, pawing at the laces on the bodice next to her. Sliding a finger where the twine crosses over, pulling it from its brass grommet with a long, manicured finger. The elven girl with flushed cheeks, pale breasts, says she must speak to Madame Lusine first. Sabina coos that it’s no bother.

She hops off her stool, intending to pay her fare. What a trifle. But the templar is there, only a few inches taller than she, his face already turned to one side, avoiding her gaze.

“You,” she whispers. And she’s forgotten about Lusine because up close like this she can smell him. The day’s sweat and something else. Can almost taste his hesitancy, the way it rolls off of him like a current. They do not know each other, but still he acts as if he were caught at something he should not be doing.

“Excuse me,” he clearly means to push her aside, but why he does so by placing his bare hand at her hip, Sabina cannot fathom.

Cloudy, her head is cloudier when she’s standing. She puts a hand to the back of his neck, letting her fingers separate the blond curls there, pull them apart. His skin is warm, so warm. And she decides then for certain that she must have him. Pretty elves for a price be damned.

“You’re here for someone.” It’s not a question. Sabina is sure that is why the templar is here, dressed humbly as he is in his breeches, his soft, white shirt that he fills out all too well. “Let that someone be me.”

She pulls him towards her lips, not a hint of resistance. In her muddled mess, she forgets they are in a crowded room. Dancing, laughing, seduction all around. A brothel, yes, but a fancy one where one goes behind closed doors to meet their pleasures.

His lips are soft, warm as his skin. Mouth open and wet for her, letting her tongue past. It’s brief, because he must remember what she cannot. So he pulls back, his amber eyes shining, but he doesn’t smile.

“I-” he starts.

“Do you have someplace we can go?” Just from that taste, she knows she wants more. She’ll buy the whole brothel if she needs to. But she hopes it doesn’t come to that. Would have been a couple of gold, right now this seems worth a couple thousand.

“Nevermind,” she waves him off with a flick of her wrist. “I will take care of it.”

She tells Lucine she wants the room, not the girl, but give her the proper share in any case. All doe-eyed as she is, the elf has earned it. A good deception, one Sabina can admire.

With the key in her hand, Sabina is half-surprised the templar waited for her.

Ascending the stairs, she leans against him, holding hands like this is something more than it is. There is trepidation in his steps. Not an issue, she’ll hold firm.

“What’s your name, pretty templar?” The key turns in the lock. Once through the door, she grabs at his tunic, pulling it over his shoulders, unwilling to wait any longer. The name doesn’t matter, but it might calm his nerves.

“Cullen.” His hands wrap around her waist, pulling her close against his bare chest. Her nails claw against the definition there, how perfectly he has been sculpted. Shame to keep that under chain or plate or anything at all. Far as she’s concerned, he should be naked all the time. Like some fucking prized pet.

She lies with the ease she has always carried. “I’m Ghost.”

“That’s an odd name?”

“Odder still that you’re questioning my name when you could be fucking me.” She pushes against him until the backs of his knees hit the mattress. Pushes him all the way over, prone before her. Eyes wide, hair askew, she wants to climb inside him, push out all the beautiful and ugly things about him and make them her own.

“How do you want me?” That question from his lips she likes more than the former one.

She likes that question as much as she likes the slip of his flesh against hers as the layers of their clothing come away. The way he gasps when she stands naked before him makes the whole endeavor worthwhile.

“Inside me.”

She waits for him to lean forward, grab at her hips, pulling her until she straddles him, until her loose hair curtains their faces. He presses up with desperate kisses, like they have been lovers before. Her nails clutch at his shoulders, her hips grinding down on his.

With strength she was all along certain he possessed, he flips her over onto her back, legs still hanging off the side of the bed. He kneels before her, parting her folds with his fingers before pressing his mouth against her sex. Hungry, wet, he laps at her, sliding one finger into her and curling. Her legs wrap about his shoulders, pulling him forward, closer. His heat, she cannot stand it.

She comes in waves and waves. Dizzy now, the liquor still In her veins, making her clumsy.

“Maker, you are so beautiful.” If not for the curse she never uses, she could have said the same of him. Her wetness glistening on his face. A hand gripping at his hair, trying to maintain control.

Sabina wants him to stop stopping. Whining, she cedes, “Fuck me already.”

Shucking the last of his smalls, he seems almost embarrassed, now, after as far as they’ve come. For a moment, Sabina worries that she has selected improperly. Picked the wrong person to share her bed, for all his beauty, if he will not follow commands.

“Now,” the word drops from her lips, eyes closing.

The piston of his hips into hers, scorching where skin touches and refuses to break. The fullness that invades her. She gasps at it. How deliciously full. And all at once. Just at the edge of too much. Enough to make her unravel. Just to die because when her eyes open she can’t see straight.

Cullen’s light eyes above her, standing, his shoulders shaking as he refuses to move. He holds her legs apart so he will fit quite right against her. Sabina could swear she’s seen him before. Dozens of times, hundreds. But that is a lie. His accent is Ferelden. He’s a common boy in a city that could well destroy him. She could well destroy him. Given the chance,

His hips roll back, slicking out of her inch by inch before thrusting forwards again. And again. She frees her legs from his grasp, instead wrapping them about his waist, pulling him as he pushes, as he fucks. She likes the word ‘fuck’ better, letting it fall from her mouth. His hands make different work, ghosting over her breasts, lingering at her nipples. He is as entranced with her as she is him.

“Maker.”

Fingertips press against her hips so harshly, holding her down now, she can imagine the bruises. Dark and purple against her skin, lingering for days in a way Cullen otherwise will not. Even now his name slips away in the sensation of his speaking skin. Maybe the warmth, maybe another day she will remember that.

His breaths labor. He’s close. Sabina takes her own fingers to her clit, working herself so deftly she comes first, nearly silent but still ragged. Can’t stop to breathe, that’s not an option. Her stomach flutters in an odd way, the pressure of his cock still inside her.

When their eyes catch, it is the death of him, a rapid unravelling as he spills inside her. She doesn’t worry on it. Mistakes enough already made. At least this is a lovely one that will cling to her awhile longer. His arms wrap around her, pulling her up as he slips out. Holding her chest against his, fingers tangled in her long hair.

He knows well enough that he has no name to call her, liar that she is.

When he speaks, she is not expecting it. “There are bite marks, on your breasts.”

It doesn’t matter. She can’t even fathom why he notices.


	2. Divisions on Account of Ruptures Between Who You are and Who You Were

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buy New Boots. Sort of hate yourself. Have sex to feel better.

Sabina buys new boots. She spends the money near sight-unseen, because such a frivolous waste of funds feels somehow authentically her. Her before the Inquisition, and the responsibility that chases her down narrow corridors, the weight on her chest that doesn’t leave, no matter how many glasses of wine. The change in her, she can feel it in the pit of her stomach just as well as it’s on her fingertips, flying away and holding her down.

And she hates it. 

So she spends a few hundred gold on boots she doesn’t even look properly at, because they shopkeeper says she’ll look lovely in them. And the shopkeeper doesn’t call her “Lady Inquisitor.” That alone makes her breath catch. She forgets sometimes that she’s not always immediately recognizable. She forces herself to forget she looks nothing like the paintings.

In the end, the boots don’t suit her as well as the pair she brought from the Marches, the same that she wore at the Conclave. Maybe because they’ve walked in the Fade, twice now? So she stows the new boots in a box and forgets about them. 

She tries to forget about Cullen too. Tries to forget that she loves him, because that doesn’t feel authentically her either, though she is certain. What a cruel lie to cast upon herself otherwise. And one that would only be to their detriment. 

The sooner she defeats Coryphaeus, the sooner she can return to the woman she was. Before the fucking Anchor on her fucking hand. Before the Inquisition’s fucking Commander in her fucking heart.

Taking a breath, she feels her chest constrict, so painful, she feels as if she may pass out. Sabina pulls on her old boots, her fur-lined coat, she ties her hair at the top of her head, curls brushing against her ears. All of the trappings of the girl from Ostwick won’t take her back across the Waking Sea. In a fit of rage, she wants to smash through her vanity mirror, feel the chips of glass spike her knuckles. But then she would only have to replace the damaged one with an inferior object.

She is the inferior object.

Instead, she crosses Skyhold. Her feet stamping against the stone and earth alike, until her hips hurt because she’s walking with her stance a little wider than she should. She can’t even blame her feet for the path they walk. They don’t know another, they don’t want another. 

Cullen. At work. They are always at work. There is no outside, no barrier to break through into a semblance of simplicity. There is only the Inquisition and their feeble attempts to make something in the cracks in between, where it splinters and decays. And there are few ruptures, shiny and new as their Order is.

“Inquisitor?” He stands at attention, only rarely does he sit, preferring to read his daily reports while pacing the room, if he can. Sabina will only ever know one-tenth of the information sent to her. 

She suddenly finds herself quite speechless. “I do not know why I came.”

Cullen smiles, just a touch, as if he knows something she does not. But that is not possible. “Well, I am glad in any case.”

Throwing down her powders she shimmers from his view. The scent, acidic and sharp, no longer stings her nose, but she catches how Cullen winces. Her steps are light as she dashes from door to door, locking them each in turn. The metal of the locks is cold against her skin, heavy despite the wood that supports them. There is a weight to the action, locking out, locking in.

She closes the gap between her and Cullen next, pressing against him so quietly that he gasps when their bodies touch, chest to chest. Only a few inches taller than her, his hands know of their own accord where her shoulders are. His thumbs graze against the back of her neck as he holds her head in place. 

“Sabina?”

“Yes?” she presses the word against his cheek, feeling the flush that rises. It’s not intentional, or controllable. He’s just so warm.

“What are we doing?”

“Dancing.”

So they do. She takes his hands from around her neck, moves them to the slight curve of her hip. With her weight pressed against his, she backs him against the wall, narrowly missing the bookcase. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know how,” Cullen admits. Though he must be in on her joke as well. 

Everything is dancing, the lessons she best learned from the Marches. Pretty girl that she was, that she will always somehow be. Fine enough for the backwater courts, but not the throne of the Inquisition. 

She hisses in his ear, not harsh, only enunciating her demands. “Strip for me, Cullen Rutherford.”

His back stays perfectly straight against the wall, making no movement to obey. Still a ghost, he looks to where her eyes should be, rather than where they actually are. 

“Do you deny me?” Her hands trace what patterns they can over his breeches, pressing and prodding against covered flesh. She already knows well enough what it looks like, the way his skin burns, flushes, yields. The hard press of his swollen cock in her hand, in her cunt too. But perhaps this time she has broken too far. The pretty templar, the good one, who followed the Chantry’s law to the letter, she’s sure of it, is a willing participant in her transgressions. She can’t enumerate the sins he must have committed in the name of the Maker. At least her sins, many as they are, belong only to her.

He listens, peeling away his armor layer by layer. To allow him to do so, she must back away from him, let him step away from the wall, freed from the cage of her body. Instead, she sits on the edge of his desk, crosses her legs one over the other and watches. She cannot hold him in place, not physically. It is impossible that she is stronger than he is, though she has not tested it. Knowing her limitations allows her to dance so close to things that may hurt her.

When he looks into the empty space where she is/is not, something catches inside her. She is already hurt. He has done this. He has ruined her. 

“Come here,” she commands. 

Cullen steps towards her, following the sound of her voice. Uncrossing her legs, she settles Cullen between them, the heat of his half-hard cock pressed against her clothed body. He did well, stripping all the way down without shame. As long as she does not force him to talk, they may play in this illusion a bit longer. 

Reaching up, she cradles his face in her hands, running invisible fingers across his nose, over his cheekbones. He’s so perfect physically it pains her at times. He would have done well as Inquisitor. They wouldn’t have to change a thing when the artists painted him. 

She wants, quite desperately, to ask why he loves her. To force all the contingencies and ultimatums from his mouth, swallow them up so they make her sick to her stomach. Until she ruptures on them. 

Instead she moves her hands to his hips, tracing the ridges of his chest, sharp, like glass which could slice her, until she reaches her destination. Her fingers curl around each hip, pulling him forward until they crash together.

“Cullen.” There is a question there, one she does not ask it in full because in its articulation it turns to dust. 

“Sabina.” That is enough of an answer. 

She brings one finger to her mouth, then two. Already, she knows she probably won’t need the second. Slicking them with saliva, she must look very vulgar, but he cannot see her, only imagine the motions he can somewhat feel as she shifts around him. 

Releasing his hips altogether, she wraps her dry hand around his erection first, pumping him stroke by merciful stroke until he is fully hard, precum leaking from the head of his cock. His hands find her shoulders first, then travel up to her hair, loosening the knot and letting it fall. Though he can’t see it in any case, holding it in his fingers seems to comfort him. 

Wetting her fingers again, this time she draws her hand around hip, presses at the small of his back, gently at first. “Let me have you?”

She asks. She always asks because she cannot be as cavalier as she once was. This man has broken her and he barely registers it.

With a slight nod of his head, Sabina knows he will give himself over. Her fingers press lower, finding him willing, she slips one finger into him, slowing when she meets resistance, waiting for him to breath. She forgets to breathe herself, the way his face washes over, adjusts. Wanting to kiss at the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, she must be content with pecking against his chest. One hand she holds still, filling him but not forcing, the other she keeps in steady strokes. He is so hard for her, for this.

A naked man in an otherwise empty room, his legs spread, just slightly, open, vulnerable, breathing heavily against an assailant no one can see, but he can feel, ghosting against him, filling him, wrecking him. The whole idea is delicious to her, the picture they must make of debautury. She feels almost herself again. 

It nearly spills out of her. ‘I love you. You’ve destroyed me. Nothing will be the same.’ Her mouth opens and closes against his skin, she makes the pain inside her sexual, licking against him, smiling like she is something coy instead of something devastated. 

Her fingers twitch inside him, and he twitches around her. So short, so sweet. That he accepts her as she is. That he wants her, as she is.

“You’re so beautiful.” They’re not the words she intends, they’re better because they reveal so little. Perhaps only what Cullen already knows.

When he comes it is against her tunic, it will leave an ugly wet patch. Not worth having the servants clean it, she’ll just throw it away. The gasp of air as he disappears and reappears on the plane of existence. Sabina knows well enough it’s a little like dying, when it’s good. She pulls her fingers from him before making herself visible. In the aftermath of his pleasure he sinks to the floor, his palms resting on her open thighs. Breathing, just breathing until he can catch up to reality. 

“Maker,” he covers his face with his hands. 

Hopping from the edge of the desk, she reaches for his coat on the floor. She wraps it around his shoulders, crawls beside him, sitting on her legs and trying to pull his hands away from his face. Instead she places them around her neck, her arms around him as well. 

She wants to split him open, like that’s the only way she’ll heal the rawness in herself. But it won’t be enough, because she’d even miss his remnants.


	3. Kissing and Telling is Well and Good When There’s a Story Somewhere in the Mess

Sabina tips her mug towards her painted lips, smiling as the ale goes down. With her hood up over her head, hiding dark curls and darker eyes, the other Inquisition agents can’t tell it’s her, ‘the Herald of Andraste,’ what a fucking title that is. As if she doesn’t blaspheme at every opportunity; as if she would ever walk in the Maker’s light. Curling her fingers around her mug, she tries to remember how many drinks it’s been. Not important. While she’s at Haven, she should be allowed to be her own woman, not just a precious, unwieldy weapon that Cassandra carts around to seal rifts and make awkward small talk.

Long as she can order her drinks with a slight smile, a steady voice, she won’t be cut off. If she is cut off, she’ll steal the bottle and drink in the cells below the Chantry, singing off-key about good Templars and their multitude of sins.

A hand rests on her shoulder, thin, freckled, and pale. Sera’s. Of course she wouldn’t be fooled by a heavy cloak, an obscured face. Wordlessly, Sabina spins on her barstool, wrapping her legs around Sera’s hips, throwing her arms around the blonde’s shoulders. She rocks them back and forth, sing-songing her words.

“And what’s a pretty lady like you doing in a dive like this?”

Sera laughs, her head thrown back. Sabina wants to lean forward and peck at her perfect little nose, the hollow of her throat. Wants to run her fingers against the back of her neck too, but that might be a step too far. When Sera first joined the Inquisition, Sabina had tried that, Sera saying it was too soon, not yet, maybe later. Those were words were warning enough. Sabina doesn’t want anything to do with ‘later.’ So instead, she stands, takes Sera’s cheeks in her hands and kisses her forehead, tells her she’s great, and she should have a glass or three.

Sabina has another two, she doesn’t know how many Sera downs but it’s enough that her face flushes dark, darker freckles on top of that, like all the stars in the sky condensed down into one place.

“We should get in trouble,” Sabina muses, her boots on the table.

“You’re always in trouble, Lady Trevelyan,” Sera counters.

Laughing into her mug, Sabina can’t deny that much. “I’m not Lady Trevelyan, you liar.” Her lipstick is on the rim, can’t be much left of it on her mouth.

“Oh, you look an awful lot like ‘er?”

“Must be the ale.” She finishes her mug before grabbing Sera’s hand, pulling her up off her feet and twirling her across the crowded tavern floor. Her dancing lessons make up for Sera’s clumsier feet. But Sera is an adapter, she learns the steps without Sabina having to teach her. No one makes room for them, a blonde girl who is beyond beautiful and a hooded woman with a light step. The crowd scoffs as they bump around the tables.

Too soon Sera sighs and says she must get to bed, rubbing at her eyes. Blackwall is leading them out tomorrow, back to the Hinterlands. Within the week, Sabina will depart for the Storm Coast. They may not see each other for a good long while, so she kisses Sera’s forehead again and tells her to stay safe, to pin-cushion a bunch of baddies too. Sera asks her never to change. Sabina swears it on the Maker before they both burst out laughing until their sides hurt.

She tries to keep her head very still, upright on her neck as she walks from the alight tavern to the darkened Chantry doors. She doesn’t want to sleep here, surrounded by idols she’ll never find comfort in, but space is limited at Haven. The small house she had before has already been re-purposed for the sick and the injured.

If she keeps real slow, she’s pretty sure she can walk straight, her fingers skimming against the stone walls as she dips in and out of alcoves. Keeping her eyes on the pattern her feet make against the floor, she almost misses the presence in front of her. Not quite, but almost.

“Herald?” His voice is sweet with concern. Like spun sugar that will evaporate into nothing at all in her mouth as she swallows down his words.

No, no she doesn’t want him to call her that. She wants him to call her nothing at all. “I’m fine.” Sabina plants her feet, hopes Cullen will continue along his path and leave her alone. Aching to fall asleep in a warm, clean bed, she doesn’t need the scent of him haunting her senses. But he’s just so good. And she’s a beautiful mess.

“Let me help you?” Cullen’s hand rests at her shoulder, warm through the fabric of her tunic. When she looks up, catching at his light eyes, she forgets to breathe, then feels like she might die. Dying might be a little like this, the heady feeling combined with low-rumbling queasiness . Why must he be so kind?

Ghosting her fingers across his ear, down to his neck, she steals away his hold on her with a smile. “Boys like you can’t help girls like me.”

“And what kind of girl is that?” She catches the hitch in his voice as her nails dance at his collarbone, feather light, taunting.

She doesn’t know anymore. So she can’t answer him.


	4. Market

Sabina only makes noise when she intends to. Her otherwise light step comes crashing down on the floorboards, like she was born in a barn instead of with soft-soled shoes meant to guide her feet, not restrict them. If she meant to surprise, cause alarm, she could. But now is not the time. 

Dropping his pen to his desk, Cullen rubs one of his eyes. Just the one eye, the left, has been straining as of late. Age, perhaps? But it does not make sense that the symptom would manifest only on one side, not the other. He tries to remember if there was a particular bit of debris.

“Darling, what do you need?” 

She ignores him at first, instead acting particularly invested in the spines of the leather-bound books that fill the shelves. He has read most of them, at least referenced the others. They are items of function, not display. Her mechanical fingers press against each one, as if appraising their density. Cullen follows her with his eyes as she steps to the side, reaching at each book in turn. 

Abruptly, she turns, hands clasped behind her back. “You missed dinner,” she explains, “and so did I.”

Cullen laughs, picks up his pen again and resumes signing off on requisition forms. When he was more alert, he read each one with particular care, now he needs only to approve the ones he has deemed appropriate. 

This interval, Sabina is silent, moving from the shelves to beside his desk more quickly than his exhaustion-dulled perception. Sitting just at the edge of his desk, she disturbs nothing. Her feet perch on the armrest of Cullen’s chair. While her long linen skirt preserves her modesty, it won’t be for long, if history serves. She has caught him with this tactic before; even if he outwits her in the moment, the larger strategy still stands. 

Sabina plucks the pen from his hand, a wash of ink smearing against the parchment. “You may tell them you fell asleep while signing,” she offers with a shrug.

“I am not quite so adept at lying as you.” He wraps one of her bare ankles in his grip. With the summer weather, she no longer wears the boots of which she is normally so fond. His thumb rubs against the protrusion of the joint.

She waves him off, “you will want to be, once you know the truth.”

Hooking one of her legs around his thigh, Sabina pulls herself into Cullen’s lap, legs falling off the sides of the chair. They barely fit like this. Her hands reach for the back of his neck, cradling his head, splaying her fingers at the back of his hair, twining the strands between them. Her lips press to his, just the tease of it, soft and full, but short, so short as she pulls away. He has learned to recognize the blush on her cheeks, where before he could not, the way it rises and falls like a breath, and just as quickly fades to nothing. It never lingers.

She fidgets with the laces at the front of his tunic, pulling them apart so it is loose enough to pull up over his head. The collar catches for a moment at his ear. As far as he can tell, she has not locked the doors. But perhaps it does not matter, if they are quick enough. He rucks up her skirts, sliding his hands along her thighs, waiting to feel her muscles tense. His short-nailed fingers dig into her flesh. Her assault on his mouth is relentless, the way she nips and bites, laughing as he hisses from the edge of pain. 

Leaning back towards the desk, she grabs up his pen, still wet with ink, but not for much longer. 

“So tell me,” she tilts her head to one side, curls catching in the lamplight. “What shall I write?”

As she waits for his answer, she draws idle patterns, crude flowers and lacework crafted by an idle hand. Not much of an artist, and she presses too hard, cutting against him just so. But it is only a simple instrument, it cannot hurt him, much. She is only the woman he loves. Only that.

“Your name?” he suggests.

She laughs, “the one that is the legacy of my father? And his father? And his? Tre-vel-yan.” The syllables exaggerated on her tongue. “Or the one he gave me when I was born? The one meant to make me an individual with a distinct identity. To individuate. The identity our fair friends the Ambassador and the Spymaster have tried so hard to erase? Sa-bi-na.” Her tongue clicks at the end.

The black of the ink bleeds against his skin, rather than soaking it as parchment would. It runs down the lines of his chest until it dries up, fades to nothing. 

“Have you forgotten? The first is my name too, now. Tre-vel-yan,” he mocks.

“That is the beauty of exchange, is it not? Instead of being given to a woman, I gave it to a commoner.”

Cullen starts, though he does not mean to. Sabina’s face falls.

“I did not mean to offend.” Still, she draws flowers, crisp little lines meant to emulate delicate things. “But only, it does not matter what body takes the name, the system stretches on. So no, not my name.” She smiles, as if she has happened upon something quite clever. “Perhaps I will write what you are,” she bites the tip of her tongue between words. “Slut. Whore.” Her diction, even of vulgar sounds, is quite perfect. “Would you like that? For me to write upon your skin the titles you could not possibly, publically bear?”

He inhales sharply as the nib touches his skin. It is dry. Sabina leans back once more, holding her other hand to his shoulder to maintain balance, wetting the pen with ink. 

“Now, where were we?”

Cullen closes his eyes as she writes, unwilling to answer. He focuses on the scrape against his skin, the heat of her cunt against his breeches as she leans forward to work. Letter after letter, he is too lost in the sensation to make out the lines, only that she drafts them with precision. 

When she is done, she tosses the pen aside, letting it drop to the floor, heavy still with ink. When it hits the ground, tiny droplets splatter to the stone. 

Sabina unlaces his breeches, reaching for his erection, there since she straddled him, harder since her declarations. Her right hand, the warm, dexterous one, wraps around his cock. Leaning forward, he presses her back to the desk, trying to consume her, taking her mouth against his and pressing his desire from his lips to hers. Whispers without words. No necessity. 

He reaches between her thighs, finding her wet and wanting. Half-standing from the chair, he leans over her, supports her hips with his arms. With her back against the desk, he feels like she has almost ceded control, almost. But, Maker, Maker the way she works him, ever tightening strokes of her hand, quicker with each heartbeat. Cullen slides one finger into her, curling up until she gasps. When she switches to growls of frustration, he takes the wet finger to her clit, rolling it between his fingers until she laughs. He laughs too, presses their foreheads together as he spills onto her white dress, darkening it with cum. Satiated, he drops to his knees, her hips dropping against his desk. Pulling up her skirts, he replaces his finger with his tongue.

Her hand in his hair, she pulls him close until her legs twitch, her toes point. And she’s laughing again, so clean and clear, ringing in his ears. 

She slides to the floor to meet him, kissing against his bottom lip. Her mechanical index finger slides along his nose to the very tip. 

“I should go, we both still have work,” she says.

Cullen nods, tucking a loose, dark curl behind her ear. “We look a mess.”

“I suppose so.” Sabina tries to straighten her attire, pulling up one strap of her sleeveless dress back onto her broad shoulder. Black ink is smeared across the front of the fabric, over the slight curve of her breast, down her sternum. 

They do not bother to say goodbye. There is no need.

It is not until the door clicks closed behind her that Cullen looks down at his chest. The ink is smeared with sweat, but he can still make it out, the letters she etched between the crude flowers.

_Love_


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is off a [tumblr](http://imperfectkreis.tumblr.com) prompt that was for a divorce AU. This is also modern AU and blends two timelines from other series I've written.

Cyprian tries to keep his eyes forward, his focus on the television. 

His mom and Cullen have gone to the lawyer's about the divorce, leaving sixteen-year-old Cyprian to watch his five-year-old brother. Rufus doesn't really ask questions about why mom and dad fight anymore. He's content enough to sit on the couch and play Little Big Planet as long as Cyprian is there to help him through the hard parts.

There are a couple of things Cyprian is trying not to notice, while his kid brother stumbles through puzzles on their big screen. One is how tiny Rufus' magi-suppression bracelets are. Bleak strips of shiny metal against his skin. He remembers, distantly, how heavy they were when he was just a little older than Rufus. Now, he barely notices the weight. He doesn't exactly forget, though. He tries to hide them among tangles of other jewelry, leather straps and ugly hemp cords and whatever he can accumulate around his wrists like a nesting bird. People always see them first, though. And the silver bands around their children's wrists might have something, a little, to do with why mom and Cullen are getting divorced.

The second thing Cyprian is trying not to notice is the way Kieran smells sitting on his other side. Kieran showed up an hour ago, making himself comfortable and scarfing down pepperoni pizza bagel bites like he hadn't eaten in weeks. If Cyprian didn't know better, he'd say that were the case, his best friend only ever looking like skin stretched too tight over frail bones. But Kieran's skinniness isn't the problem. The problem is in the last few months Cyprian has become acutely aware of how close Kieran sits next to him when they're playing video games, how his hair smells like winter, like ice and cinnamon. 

Cyprian keeps his arm thrown over the backrest of the couch while the three of them take turns with the controller. Rufus wants Cyprian to help him, but Kieran is better at the game. They eat the whole box of bagel bites and Cyprian's arm goes from the back of the couch to over Kieran's shoulders. Kieran doesn't move out of the touch, instead, he leans in, putting his head on Cyprian's side.

Maybe he's supposed to think about this.

Kieran's unshackled hand rests against Cyprian's bouncing thigh. Cyprian worries what will happen when the divorce is final. If Cullen is gonna go into some sort of tailspin. If Kieran's gonna be a victim of that. That because of Cyprian he's gonna end up locked up too, when right now mom makes Cullen turn a blind eye to the fact Kieran doesn't wear bands. 

"I don't know what is up with your parents. Everyone knows they're still fucking." Kieran's fingers start moving. Not a lot, but Cyprian's leg stills in response.

"Like you're an expert. Your parents have always hated each other."

Kieran shrugs, "at least they're consistent."

"So are mine."

All three boys hear the key in the lock. Rufus tosses the controller on the coffee table before jumping up. Running to the door to greet mom. Cyprian and Kieran try and rearrange themselves as to look less suspicious on the couch.

Cullen has come back too, stepping inside just after mom. 

Cyprian wishes he were strong enough to tear the damn bracelets off, rip right through the metal with the force of his anger and fucking fry Cullen in his boots. Melt his skin from his bones and grind his bones to dust. He'll remind the bastard why mages should be feared. He'll remind Cullen what his own blood stitched together. Twice.

When Cullen calls Rufus "son" like he still loves the boy, Cyprian thinks he'll just beat him with his bare hands instead. Rip out his throat. Pummel him into pulp. He's already half an inch taller than Cullen. Doesn't weigh as much, but he'll get there.

"Cyprian, no," Kieran keeps his voice low. 

Mom kisses the top of Cyprian's head on her way past. Tells him not to stay up too late, they have school in the morning. She asks Kieran if he's staying the night. If it's okay with his mom, it's okay with her. Cullen is in no position to question her decision. Why the fuck is he even here?

Her hair is pinned up, out of her face. It looks like she hasn't washed it in a week, the way the curls fall apart, she falls apart. Cyprian still thinks she looks too good for him.


End file.
